


Detrimental

by FireThatFox



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 9,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireThatFox/pseuds/FireThatFox
Summary: She thought she had killed him, she was wrong.  Sakura thought the first time he had saved her was a coincidence but it wasn’t.  A pattern was forming.  Every solo mission, he was there, every team mission she was watched.  Her enemies were dropping around her, a path of dead bodies leading down a very familiar path.  There could only be one outcome, because that’s the way he had planned it.I'm closing this for now, but will re-do it later...not happy with it at all.
Relationships: Gaara & Haruno Sakura, Gaara/Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Sasori, Haruno Sakura/Sasori
Comments: 56
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re dead.” Every life sustaining breath was misery yet her indomitability to know out weighed her torture.

“Observant as usual.” Insatiable amber bore down on her simple green.

“I killed you.” Her persistence to say the same thing with different words annoyed him.

“I have other things that require my attention so if you would like to die, please do so. If not, desist your penchant for common observation and allow me to heal you.” His red hair was longer in the front, enough to fall gracefully over his eyes as he continued to look down at her with his typical bored and lazy half hooded eyes.

“Sa sori.” Her teeth chose to clench involuntarily at that moment, his name choked out over dry and cracked lips.

“Open your mouth my dear.” Glass cool and smooth was pressed to her lips.

He sighed.

“If I wanted you dead, I only need to leave, open your mouth girl.” Her lips parted painfully, her eyes screwed shut as she swallowed.

If it was her skin that was hot or his hands that were cold she didn’t know, but it was the pad of his calloused thumb that passed swiftly over her bottom lip, his breath on her skin and his lips on the corner of her mouth in farwell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be a slow fic. Thank you Tsukiko Hoshino, for the inspiration.


	2. Chapter 2

The displacement of her vapid thoughts were displeasing to her avid mental state of awareness. Contradictory an understatement but state nonetheless.

Shifting in the cover of sand that had accumulated most annoyingly about her person, she stilled. Something was coming, quickly. Her sense of obligation to acknowledge his presence bid her crack one eye open. He stood before her in his signature unflappable calm.

Unflappable, the word struck an embarrassingly humorous cord with her befuddled brain. To her great horror, she exploded with unhinged laughter. His eyes widened at first in shock and then evident concern as he bent at the waist, his form looming over her.

“Haruno San. You are safe, you are whole.” The Kazekage spoke in that dark raspy deepness that flowed over her as hot as the prickly grains in her hair and as smooth and cool as the water she desperately longed for.

‘I am safe, I am whole.’ Did he know? Did he have the slightest understanding what those simple words meant to her, would mean to her? She thought he must, realization spread throughout her body. He had chosen his words, wisely.

Her catalyst...was nowhere to be seen. If Gaara noticed the frantic flickering of her eyes, he made no comment as he slipped his arms under her inadequately limp form and lifted her to his chest with little effort. Red bent to pastel pink, “I’m taking you home, to Suna.”

Deliverance. Sakura closed her eyes and desperately tried to ignore the vague sense of...forgetfulness that monopolized her unconscious.

Gaara’s hold tightened on the girl as his pace quickened, if he didn’t get her medical attention soon, he would lose her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small chapters...slow and steady.


	3. Chapter 3

She was a painting. The illumination cast pain across her eyes like Rembrandt. Sakura didn’t need to open her eyes, she felt his habitation.

“Haruno San.” It soothed her, the deep resonance infused stillness in her mind washing over her like the cool sheets he had laid her upon.

“Gaara.” The familiarity of which she spoke his name startled him for only a moment before his mouth turned up, in the merest flicker.

The annoying affliction in her head spasamed, furthering her torment in her addled state. 

“Please, close the curtains.” cracked and broken her voice upended from the bowels of her lungs.

A twitch of a finger, a rustle along the floor and the light subsided. One eye, then it’s partner opened in the satisfying dim.

“Thank you Kazekage Sama.”

A dip in the bed, a cool hand to her forehead. “Are you well?”

“I am safe, I am whole.” His words came back to him, grateful, appreciative...sincere.

“You are.” Two words, an infinite meaning, a promise.

Soft pads of his hands met her cheeks, uncalloused, unharmed, a mark of his station, of his prowess.

“I was worried when you failed to return to me. Five days. You were five days late Sakura.”

It was the disquiet in his voice that brought tenderness to her eyes in the form of moisture.

“It was not my intention I assure you Gaara. I’m sorry.” The effort it took for her to talk was too much. Her eyes closed as she slumped farther into the comfort of pillows and down.

“Who.” His thumb moved over her bottom lip in loving caress.

“Iwa nin, and a bastardy lot of them too, it was...close.” Admittance was fearfully hard won.

“The medics tell me, you took an antidote, how did you come to have one on your person?” Insatiable, like his Uncle whose hair color he shared.

“I didn’t.” She cracked open one eye and saw the scowl mar his normally stoic face before he could wash it from her presence.

“Someone...administered it. I was dying. I could feel the life leaving my body, I could feel my blood thickening in my veins.” A direct look of puzzlement shone on her tired features.

A nod. Reprieve.

“I thought, for a moment...ridiculous, it is nothing.” Her disjointed words disturbed him.

“Tell me.” his hands left her face and took her one hand between them.

Her eyes seemed to glow in the dim light, like her fists when she infused them with her chakra, such a vibrant shade of green, so piercing, so beautiful. He watched the thoughts pass through her head, as easily read as though they had been written, she hesitated. He waited.

“Sasori, he’s dead. I know this, and yet. I remember his hair, his eyes, his voice...he saved me, I could swear it.” 

“You’re exhausted.” A statement of polite denial, she understood.

She knew how she must sound. Mad.

“The stress of the situation…” He began and she pulled her hand from his.

It was a conversation they had had before...many times before.

Sasori was dead. She had killed him over four years ago. The man who filtered in and out of the corners of her eyes, the man who she knew watched her on every mission, who had saved her many times over in those last four years...she knew, it could not be Sasori…

She blamed the dreams. She blamed the war, her bitter loss, the world, herself, but never him...never Gaara.

“He is dead.” His voice was soft now, coaxing, sensitive to her ears, familiar.

“He is dead.” She repeated obediently and closed her eyes to the chaos in her mind that rioted without restraint.


	4. Chapter 4

He had brought a plant with him, small and fragile in it’s mixture of dirt and sand. New, it was new life, like their relationship. Not yet tried, not yet broken. Fragile and tentative but growing at a reassuringly steady pace.

The symbolism was not lost on her, the presentation evident in his hesitant steps.

“A cactus.” She smiled.

“It blooms.” He placed it on the sill of her rounded Suna hospital window in his awkwardness to show affection.

Her renewed sharpened state brought back the unease, the sweat that coated his tender palms.

Sharp green eyes watched him sit down in the chair beside her.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him.

“How could I not.” Not a question.

“How did you know?” Query.

Asking but not asking, saying but not saying, a dance they often danced together.

“I know everything that happens in my desert.” His promise to her did not fall on deaf ears.

She blushed.

It had only been a week since she had emerged from the heated depths of the desert to fall gracelessly at his feet in front of his village gates.

A week since she had been assigned to Suna for an indeterminable amount of time as their medical advisor.

A position the Kazekage was more grateful than he was willing or emotional capable of conveying.

He had been informed of Sakura’s nightmares, of her...hallucinations, by her Hokage. They had both agreed that perhaps coming to Suna, where it had all begun, might cure her of her ails.

To be sure, she had been saved, an antidote administered, but by Sasori, the mere thought of it was...preposterous and unfathomable.

Gaara watched her watch him. The things they wanted to say to one another laid heavy under their tongues. Their flirtatious dance was too new, too soft, any reality might break it’s fragile strings that loosely bound them together, so he nodded and she sighed.

All the words that ought to have been said, that needed to be said, fell like flour between them, light and chokingly heavy.


	5. Chapter 5

The sand slipped through the palms of her hands but the rock remained. It had been two weeks since she had been discharged from the hospital, two days since she had left Suna to join a team that had been poisoned by an Unknown.

She contemplated the unlikely. Like stagnant water he festered in her soul, an infection, that is what he was.

Rock, like the brittle mass of her past, the odious matter, poisoned blood soaking into the black sand, the metal, the fusion of awareness, him.

It was carnage, the burning in her nose a remembrance, of it, of him. His scent, choking her.

Flashback

“Sakura!” Naruto called out her name, the desperation and guilt clenched in his jaw broke through her frazzled mind.

One, two, three they embedded themselves into her back.

“Shit.” Her body heavy, bruised and broken fell from the small outcrop of rocks and limestone.

Water pooled around her legs and waist, a ravine. “Have. To. Get. Up. Sakura!” Her voice was small in the wake of her fall, the inevitable had never seemed more possible.

Legs buckled, arms twitched.

“What?” Realization of her situation broke through her annoyance, turning to panic.

She was alone. Her team over the rise, out of sight. Her eyes closed, she was tired. Her body was disobedient from her mind.

A rustle, a thump.

“Tsk.” A sound.

Try as she might, her eyes wouldn’t open.

One finger, feather light over her throat, her pulse, slow and faint. The touch lingered, indecently long.

“Tsk, reckless.” A voice...she shuddered.

Hands were turning her, there were so many, or maybe two. She was slipping, her breathing hitched, her heart was skipping, she moaned.

“Not today.” That voice, who….

“I know you.” A whisper escaped her lips. He chuckled softly by her side.

“Of course you do.” Humor...

A prick to her arm, a coolness exploded in her vein, spreading like ice.

Blue eyes met green.

“Sakura, thank kami, you slept for three days!” Naruto was crying, holding her hand.

Sasuke and Kakashi sat in unified terror at the weakened state of her health.

“No one thought you were going to survive.” Kakashi confirmed her suspicions.

“Sakura, how did you make an antidote, while poisoned, on the spot?” Sasuke marveled.

“I didn’t.” Sakura’s forehead creased as she tried desperately to...remember who, what…

End Flashback

The trees moved around her, but there was no wind. The magnitude of the wreckage before her was astounding and barely feisable to her fragmented mind. 

It was familiar.

The wounds were deep, the lacerations...unique, almost like a signature…

“Sasori.” His name was a curse upon her lips...but a curse she was becoming more and more comfortable uttering with each encounter, each discovery…

‘Can one find comfort in blood’ She mused as she turned over the closest body.

Puncture wounds, displayed with such artistry, precision...feeling. It almost took her breath away, the beauty, the simplicity of the art.

Purple, blue and yellow pockets of color sprung up around each puncture wound, the impact, the power behind the attack...was mesmerizing, admirable.

She felt him behind her, “Report.”

“The source is unknown.” The nameless Suna nin reported.

“The motive?” She barked.

Silence.

“There’s something we think you should see.” The Suna nin told her.

He was positioned...like she had been. The arms, the same, the legs, just like hers. He had been impaled, like she had been those many years ago. In the man’s hand...a Sakura branch, in bloom.

A grunt from her companion, he dropped unconscious to the ground at her feet.

Hands felt his forehead, glowing green with her chakra. She removed his shirt and felt his chest, pushing and pulling...analyzing, a poison. Delayed release, for her benefit.

This hadn’t been the first time he had left her this gift, this challenge.

Taking the flowering branch from the corpse she moved across the plain, back bent under the weight of the unconscious gift, the possibilities connecting points in her mind.


	6. Chapter 6

He stood, stood rigidly still, his eyes sunk looking into the empty grave. He had what he had come to revive. 

The masses were nothing but repugnant. Disgusting life sucking leeches of the world, he loathed them. An annoyance at best, a plague at worst, only one, he saw fit to admire, to acknowledge….respect.

Click* 

His chakra strings sprung the tension mechanism to his cave and one by one the springs released, by twos the stones fell away to reveal a small opening wide enough for one. Slowly he made his way into the calamitous void painstakingly avoiding the intricate traps laid for anyone with the audacity to pursue him.

An aperture in the narrow tunnel broke the claustrophobic shade , breathing deeply, he took the remaining steps to the nearest work table and laid the storage scroll in the center for later.

His assembled hoard hung leisurely along the perimeter of his open cavern patiently waiting for the day they would make their final stand.

‘Sakura’, her name a mantra in his head, a stillness in his broken hated heart...the antidote to his poisoned life…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on hold until I finish 'In Which Many Things Gang Angly'


	7. Chapter 7

Despondently she sat, resolute was her face.

She held the accursed branch bearing her name in one hand, a vial of adulterated blood in the other.

The association, what...was it.

her of course. The poison in her name, the poison on the flowers of the branch, her...him.

Green eyes focused, adoringly on the flowers, the poison was so subtle, so him, fatal, menacing, beautiful. This wasn't the first time the irony had shocked her. She was more than certain, it wouldn't be the last.

Delicate fingers traced the delicate blooms, she was immune she realized...the connection, he had used this poison on her before...but altered it to suit his desires, so like him, she smiled.

The man lay on her table mere feet from her position, his breathing shallow, but alive. The ingestion, unknown, the timing, unknown, the cause...discovered and the poison, cured.

The Kazekage had left only moments ago, congratulating her on another life saved. Another life in danger, because of her he meant, she snorted.

"Sasori." The name a curse upon her lips, a blessing, a prayer. 

"Why?", She continued to pretend she didn't know.


	8. Chapter 8

The slippery mass was aggravating to say the least. His fingers were too clumsy as they tried to find purchase on the minuscule layers or fine threading that the veins were made of.

Chakra strings shot out of his tips in his annoyance, he had hoped to do this without them.

The red attached to red, the black to black, he sealed the veins and the arteries in one seal under two protective seals. Soul, he needed a trial soul, but where to get one? A will needed to be established, it could be just...anyone.

An exasperated sigh left his pinched lips as he contemplated his megar options. Time to go shopping.

He left his work room and walked down the hallway to his 'supplies'. Row upon row of chained specimens lined the walls, some awake and glaring, silent with his jutsu, or sleeping on the floors, but alive and breathing.

Ah, here he was, a large man, tall man, willful to a fault. He had been surprisingly difficult to catch. He was clever. He would do.

Several painstakingly difficult and challenging hours later, it was complete. A prototype core, his magnum opus.

Sasori placed the core into the waiting puppet of mediocre completion, a stand in, a spare, one of many, but the first of what he hoped was one, a final one, for himself.

He attached the arteries, pushed his chakra into the storage bank, released the seals and closed the front of the puppet. The fail safe, a timer. This was a trial after all.

The puppet's eyes opened, it's body jerked. "You!" The man's voice came out strong and clear full of anger, hatred and killing intent.

"Me." Sasori said bored at the display of humanity and emotion before him, coming from his creation, displeasure lit his stoic face.

"I'll kill you!" The puppet lunged, it faltered, the legs...didn't work right, something was off.

"Hum, Interesting." Sasori moved around the puppet, looking at the joints, the lining, the feet.

"What is this?" The puppet moaned with the voice of the man whose heart he had stolen.

"A test, nothing more." Sasori said not sure why he was explaining himself, boredom no doubt.

"You disgust me." The man's voice came to him once again from his creation.

"Yes, I'm sure, but no more than you disgust me, now stand still, standards must be met." Sasori cut the core from the chest of the puppet and the puppet fell lifeless once more to the ground at his feet.

Sasori hummed to himself as he turned his prototype over and over in his hands, "Almost, but not yet."


	9. Chapter 9

Sasori held the cylinder in his hand. His hand shook with the excitement that surged through his body with unprecedented glee, he was...euphoric, this was it, he had it, it was...indefectible.

He closed his eyes and closed his hand around the object of his desire, his future, his new life's goal.

He paused, had he ever had a life's ambition, no matter, he had one now.

Emotion, unburdened, untamed ran over his core, his hand twitched, his eyes closed, "Sakura."

He set the treasured piece into the box he had painstakingly made for this purpose and locked it with several sealing jutsu. His finger traced the emblem on the top of the wooden box. A cherry blossom in the claws of a scorpion. simple beauty, a clear directive. He smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

Flashback...

"Sasori Danna, we need to go now." Deidara called to him from the door to his workroom.

"I'm coming." Sasori said without regard. Taking a small box from one of his shelves he took out a cylinder with multiple paper seals cloaked around it and tucked it into his pouch.

"What's that?" The blonde asked curiously.

"Insurance." Sasori said annoyed as he pulled his back up puppet scroll from a different shelf. His hand hovered over another scroll, but he withdrew, not yet.

Sasori's eyes fell to the floor of the cave in Rivers, Gaara, his nephew, the Kazekage lay undeviatingly broken on the floor of the cave. He fingered the cylinder in his pouch but withdrew his fingers as Leader Sama began to address them.

Sasori listened as Pein told them about the two Konoha teams outside, and that his grandmother...was with them. Interesting he thought, the Sand working with the Leaf?

My my how times had changed. How his grandmother had changed, or did she want him dead...that badly.

The old fool, he thought to himself. He was nervous, he would admit. She was the elite puppet master of the Sand, she had taught him...almost...everything he knew. She wouldn't be an easy kill, not like the other worthless mediocre multitudes, no she was...a little intimidating, and he hated her for it.

Sasori made no move, no indication to give pause but he knew, he and Deidara would be the ones to face...her. They were the only ones there with their physical bodies after all. Internally he sighed and fidgeted, externally he merely looked bored.

It would be..engaging, seeing the old hag after all this time. A small, very small part of him was...curious to see how well he did against her, he wasn't the same fifteen year old boy that had left Suna all those years ago, no. 

Now he was Sasori of the Akatsuki, the murderer of the third Kazekage, the murderer of the Fifth Kazekage, he was a master in his own right...only his eyes gave him away and he hid them under the shadow of his lashes.

Leader Sama called the gathering to an end, the members vanished and only Deidara and himself remained.

Deidara jumped down from his ledge and landed next to the dead Kazekage looking down at him.

"He doesn't look like you at all. He was your nephew?" Deidara looked over his shoulder at Sasori who nodded.

"When the seal breaks and the door opens, I will take the Jinchuuriki and the Kazekage's body for my collection Deidara." Sasori told the blonde.

"What? No way, I will handle the nine tails yeah." Deidara sat down on top of Gaara's corpse.

"As far as this guy goes," Deidara patted Gaara's lifeless cheek, "I could care less what you do with him, you and your creepy sense of art." The blonde flung his long hair over his shoulder.

"My art is far above the senseless vulgarity you call art. My art is eternal, I will make him into a masterpiece, he will live on forever as one of my greatest pieces, with his sand manipulation, he will be an excellent addition to my collection." Sasori sat down beside Deidara on top of Gaara.

The enormous boulder that blocked the entrance to the cave exploded into a thousand pieces and crumbled before them.

"That's art yeah, I wonder how they managed it so quickly." Deidara looked at the light coming in from outside.

"I'm not impressed." Sasori said in his usual bored manner but his fingers twitched in anticipation.

Deidara and Sasori continued to argue about their different versions of art and which one was better while the dust cleared to reveal four nin, one Sand nin and three Leaf nin.

Sasori didn't spare his grandmother a single glance, he could feel her hatred, her disappointment, her...loathing as she looked at him in his Hiruko puppet.

Time seemed to speed up to him, soon he was alone with...his grandmother and a small girl. He could see the girl trembling, he smirked from within his puppet, she didn't stand a chance against him, but his grandmother...he hesitated.

It was like a dream, and then a nightmare. The girl was better than he had thought, his grandmother as good as he had remembered her to be.

That strength, that hair...the girl was...beautifully dangerous and she was...smart. She taunted him, the vixen, the audacity of her...he was intrigued by her. Clearly this was her first real battle, clearly she should be frozen with fear but she charged forward without hesitation, without fear for her own safety, she dodged, she wove, she took hit after hit ...she was...marvelous. He had never seen anything like her before.

He wanted her. He had to have her for his collection. Her hair alone was...worth his effort. He couldn't give her a better compliment. 

...but he faltered. It was her expressions, her emotions that captivated him the most. How could he capture that, contain it, replicate it...he couldn't. Not yet at least. His mind worked furiously as they fought. 

He had to focus. She was much more clever than he had originally given her credit for. She was quick, she was precise, she was...incredible. Yes, he wanted her, he had to have her, and he would.

He pulled back on two of his chakra strings and sent poisoned sword after sword at the girl who ran, jumped and dodged, her tiny fist drawn, puppet parts went flying, she was a vision.

While they were distracted he pulled the cylinder from his pouch pushing it through the back of his own core with chakra strings, sealing it into the rock below. 

His momentary distraction was everything he had hoped for, she ran, she jumped, she pulled his cords and then whirled through the air and ... the secondary core was pierced, he paused. 

Sasori could have smiled and he would have if it wouldn't have given him away. A reward, she had impressed him, he would reward her so that she would remember, so she would consider him...later.

As his shell fell to the ground surrounded by his puppet parents, under the cover of his mother's cloak he pulled out the hidden scroll in his leg and sealed it beside his original core. Face down, he smiled.

He would see her again, only next time, he wouldn't be a puppet...


	11. Chapter 11

Flashback...

It was silent as the earth broke away from his hidden form. He had forgotten how cold dirt could be. It was uncomfortable against his skin, he wasn't used to it.

How long had it been since he had been in his own skin, how long had it been since he had feeling in his limbs. Too long he mused. 

Sasori pulled himself up out of the earth where he had remained hidden after his battle with the old hag and his new muse. It was beautiful. He looked around the once dense cavern, puppet parts were scattered around him like jewels in the sun, only it was dusk.

He sifted through the wreckage, picking out a few choice parts that were irreplaceable, much like his original core. Again, for the tenth time since the battle he commended his own foresight on keeping a second, lesser core on his person and a replica puppet of himself...in case he needed to fake his own death.

The Akatsuki were growing more and more bold. They had an agenda, and that was all well and good but it didn't coincide with his own. Not now, at least. He had never had a real plan for his future never having given it much thought.

Leaving Suna had been a decision made over many years of loathing for the elder's, limitations they set on genius and his overall disgust with the writhing filth that was mankind. The Akatsuki had given him a home and for a time it suited his needs. They let him do as he wished, provided a decent income for his needs and they were few and far in between having only 4 members at the time of his joining.

Sasori had outgrown them though and for some time now he had planned on leaving. Until today though, he himself hadn't known exactly when he would leave the organization.

She.

He had a reason now. She was clever, she was brave but she was still inexperienced, she would...need him.

Many have needed him and used him, since he was born, but she...for her, he would be more than a man, he would be her protector.


	12. Chapter 12

Flashback...

"Sakura, I have a mission for you. It will be your first solo mission. I believe you are ready. I'm proud of you. Sasori was a strong opponent but you have come a long way, you're ready to get back out there." The Fifth Hokage looked at her apprentice and smiled.

"Thank you Shisou." Sakura bowed her head respectfully.

The truth was, Sasori had terrified her and continued to terrify her through her dreams. She still woke up sweating, her sheets twisted and clinging to her skin, like chakra strings trying to wring the life out of her.

She would wake sometimes to the feel of his hands on her body, examining her, readying her form for an eternity as another one of his dolls.

Thoughts of the Puppetmaster haunted her waking hours as well. She would find herself daydreaming of the oddest things. She couldn't get Sasori out of her mind.

He both terrified and intrigued her. Medically speaking he was a genius, medically speaking, he was mad. There was no denying his talent, dark as it may have been..she found...she respected him more than she feared him and that terrified her more than any threat he could have made to her.

The loss of the old woman, Granny Chiyo had hit her hard as well, she had just started getting to know the woman, and she missed her. She wondered and she hoped the old woman had finally found peace in the end. She had given her life to save the Kazekage, she had righted all her wrongs with Sasori by helping to defeat him.

Sakura took in a deep breath. "I am ready Shisou. What is it?"

Tsunade Senju the Fifth Hokage handed her apprentice a scroll. It was thin, it was three sentences. Assasination.

"Ah." Sakura said, reading the small characters on the paper.

"It was Kakashi's suggestion, he said it was what you needed. I am still not sure I agree with him, so if you..." Sakura cut her off.

"I am ready." Sakura bowed and walked out of the room before she had been dismissed.

Sakura packed her bag and kissed her parents goodbye. She needed to get her own place. If she kept doing solo missions she would be able to afford one in no time.

Kakashi met her by the gate.

"Sakura." He watched her with his lazy eye, his hands in his pockets.

"Thank You Sensei." She said to him. He understood her.

"I'm not your Sensei anymore Sakura, and you're no longer a child, since Sasori...I'm...proud of you Sakura." Kakashi pulled her into an awkward hug.

Sakura was stiff in his embrace. Something had changed in her since that day, since that battle with the inhuman demon puppet Sasori. No, she wasn't a little girl anymore. That kill had put her in the Bingo book.

"It's been six months since, that day." Kakashi said, his breath came through the mask that always covered his face.

"I'm fine." She assured him.

Kakashi pulled back from his former student and patted her on the head nodding.

"I'll see you when you get back." He eye crinkled at her but the smile didn't reach his eye.

Sakura saw in him, part of herself, the part that had died that day in the blown open cavern, innocence dead. Ahh, she understood and wondered why she had never seen that in her old sensei before...the dead look, the pain, the torment. She hadn't had it before she realized.

Thanks Sasori, she said to herself. Part of her was actually grateful, part of her hated him for it, but mostly...she didn't care.

"See you when I get back Kakashi." Sakura swung her pack over her back and tied her purse to her belt. She leapt to the trees without a backward glance.

She stopped at the border of Fire and Tea. She was heading to Gyoson. There was a prominent merchant there gaining notice for the local magistrate. The merchant had been gaining influence over the ears of the wealthy in the district and the magistrate feared for the stability and wealth of his position. Sakura's mission was to assassinate the merchant.

Sakura knew none of that though, she only had the name and a brief description of her target, and his location. It was an Anbu mission and she wondered why she had been given it.

After filling her canteen she took a moment to look at her surroundings. It had been quite some time since she had been in Tea. The last time she had been here had been with Naruto...and Sasuke. A sad smile graced her lips as she looked out over the water in front of her, then she heard it. 

Sakura stilled and sent her chakra out around her. She had been practicing her sensory skills and had expanded her skill set to include chakra strings...an idea she had gotten when she had fought Sasori six months ago. She closed her eyes and concentrated, there was something, no someone...to her right.

"I know you're there." Sakura said boldly, confidently. 

"Come out." She commanded.

Nothing moved, nothing happened.

"Have it your way. I was just leaving." She said comfortably.

She jumped to the trees again and ran toward Gyoson, she should make it there before nightfall. Perfect.

Sasori's mouth twitched from where he had been hiding in the brush. She had sensed him. Her skills were improving. He followed.

Sakura fell from her crouch on the ceiling beam, they had known she was there. Blood flowed over and through her fingers. The kunai were embedded deeply into the side of her thigh, she couldn't run and she was surrounded. It had been a trap.

Her leg was numb, her mouth was dry and her eyes...they didn't seem to want to focus. Poison, the knowledge hit her hard, she gasped.

"Poor little Leaf kunoichi, all alone." The hired nin taunted her spinning two kunai on his fingers as he walked around her bleeding form.

She swayed slightly, she was fighting to stay conscious, damn it, she thought. 'I guess I won't see you when I get back Kakashi', she could almost laugh but her voice didn't work. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

Two more nameless nin came out of the shadows.

"Can we have a little fun with her first?" One man leered at her, watching her as she started to pant.

Sakura began to panic, she couldn't breathe, she sucked in air but it didn't seem to go to her lungs, she was suffocating.

"She won't live long enough." The other nin said emotionlessly.

Sakura closed her eyes, this was it, after all she had done, after how hard she had worked, this was going to kill her. She would have rather it had been Sasori than these pathetic excuses before her.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She forced her eyes open. The three men lay on the ground, bleeding, vacant eyes looked at her from dead faces.

"Tsk." The sound came to her.

"Come girl." Hands lifted her from the floor.

"Ahhh." She screamed as the kunai were pulled from her thigh.

"Tsk." Another noise of annoyance.

Warm hands smoothed her hair from her face.

"Sakura, open your mouth." A voice said. She knew that voice...where had she heard that voice. 

She opened her mouth, and swallowed.

Instant relief, she breathed deeply.

"Not too fast, slowly, through the nose out the mouth dear." That voice.

Sakura nodded. "Who." She gasped out.

A chuckle.

"Me." He said.

Shock and recognition flew through her like lightning, "Saso Sasori!" She gasped and drew her breath in too quickly, she gasped again then passed out.

"Yes dear, it's me. So nice to see you again." Sasori lifted the unconscious woman in his arms and jumped out the window with her.

Six hours later a Leaf team found her on the border of Tea and Fire, sleeping out in the open in their direct line of sight.


	13. Chapter 13

The Kazekage sat behind his desk in his vacant office drumming his fingers restlessly on the hard grained wood.

She was different than he had remembered her. She was strong, clever but distrurbed.

He could see it in her eyes...the tension, the madness. It was the look he had often had in the past. The uncertainty of the situation bothered him.

What was it that fixated his uncle in her mind...was it the battle, the near death experience, the challenge... he wasn't sure.

One thing he knew was, she was slipping, she was faltering, she was falling and he desperately wanted to save her.

She had been there for him, she had saved him, his brother and countless other Sand nin, he owed her, he wanted to help he wanted...her.

Sakura Haruno, the only woman who had ever looked at him with kind eyes, before the Ichibi had been ripped from his body, before he had control over the madness, before...

She was...real and he wanted to ground her. He wanted to give her what she gave him, stability, empathy, kindness, a saving grace, but mostly, he wanted to give her the understanding he didn't think she had gotten from her village. They had sent her to him because...that is where it had all begun, because they didn’t know how to help her.

He felt responsible.

"I will save you." Gaara stood from his desk and looked out over his village, his village that wouldn't be there if not for Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi Hatake.


	14. Chapter 14

Her feet hung over the wall of the cliffs that made up the boundaries of Suna, the sun's heat warmed her back. Her eyes were closed as she touched on each and every chakra signature below. 

Practice. It was something she did to ease her troubled mind, to remain vigilant...to not think.

It would be evening soon. The sun though still warm, waned. Another man cured, another message received. She would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't proud, if she said she didn't look forward to his attention.

"Sasori." His name, that name, again fell from her lips, slid over the wet of her tongue, soothed the frayed edges of her mind.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could feel him. Sometimes in the night if she concentrated really hard she could sense him.

Was she going mad, was it all in her head? She used to think it was. Tsunade had called it post traumatic, had said it would fade with time, she would forget, she would heal.

She hadn't forgotten, it hadn't faded, it had only gotten worse...or more definite in her mind, she was not insane.

She knew it wasn't.

She knew he had given her the antidote just as she knew, he had been poisoning people around her for the last four years testing her, training her, teaching her...........

She knew.

Sasori had saved her countless times, that was not the question. She no longer doubted herself, it wasn't the question of, is it him, but why was he doing it, why was he saving her, challenging her, teaching her, why her?

Sakura hadn't been offended when her Shisou had sent her to Suna. She had been happy to come, pleased with the offer. Konoha no longer felt like her home.

People looked at her with fear, with disgust, with pity. She hated it, them...

Kakashi understood. She understood him. His need for Icha Icha, for escape, had a new and profound meaning on her now, though she wasn't about to start reading porn in public...she understood it.

The difference was clear to her though. He escaped himself. She was running from...someone.

Why was she trying to push him out of her head though, she asked herself. She knew he could have easily killed her. He was toying with her, planning...he had a plan. She sat up.

Sasori had a plan.

Logic was her friend. She would stop running, she came here to confront her...issues as they called them, so why not do just that.

Sakura rose to her feet and stretched. She needed to talk to Gaara.

He was in his office, it was almost evening. He would work into the night if no one stopped him.

Sakura jumped through the window of the Kazekage's office and landed lightly on her feet beside him. He was bent over slightly signing papers.

"Sakura." His deep voice soothed her.

"Gaara." She bent over to say his name softly in his ear.

She smiled as he stiffened in his seat, his head turning to her, close, their faces were so close.

Sakura didn't move, they hadn't kissed yet. He hadn't tried to kiss her yet.

"Sakura." His voice was softer, deeper, it was her turn to shiver.

"Dinner?" She asked, her breath hot against his lips.

"Dinner." His eyes never moved from hers as he stood, she smiled and straightened up, he took her hand and they disappeared in a whirl of sand to reappear in his private quarters.

"Shall we eat in tonight?" He asked her as he stepped back and away from her, politely.

"Please." She moved to his couch and sat down while he rang for their dinner.

Gaara came to sit beside her on his couch. They sat in comfortable silence. They didn't talk much, they didn't need to and Sakura liked it that way.

"I would like to see Sasori's old mission records, if I may." Sakura said suddenly.

"So, that's what you have been doing all day." Gaara said not phased in the least by her sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, request.

"I have." She had.

"I am not denying you, I only wonder, would it help, or make it worse." Gaara's voice was his usual calm, but not indifferent, his teal eyes watched her face unblinkingly, considering her motive.

"It." She said, returning his gaze.

"You think it's all in my head don't you." She said quietly, challenging him.

"I don't, but there is proof he is dead. You saw it yourself, you were there, you killed him." He said with controlled calm, this was dangerous ground. 

This was also the first time she had come to him, to talk to him about something more than...the weather or a mission. She was opening up to him, they were forming one of those bonds Naruto spoke of. He was determined to help her.

"Was there proof?" She asked herself. Gaara knew she wasn't speaking to him and she wondered what was whirling around in her head.

"You saw his body, his core, you killed him." Gaara said confidently.

"He was a puppet Gaara, he was not alive, nor was he dead, those were his own words, do you not understand what that means? Maybe...he can't die." Her voice trailed off.

"Do you not understand Sakura, what you are doing to those who love you by not letting this go?" Gaara asked her.

"To those who love me..." She repeated. She was not in ignorance of his avoidance, she made him uneasy, that much was clear.

"No, Gaara. It is because of those who love me, I will not let it go." She stood then and walked to the door of his room.

"I find myself...without appetite. Good Evening Kazekage Sama." Sakura bowed stiffly and left Gaara sitting on his couch alone.


	15. Chapter 15

Kakashi ran through the forest toward Suna. It had been a month since Sakura had left Konoha, he was interested to see how she was fairing in the village that had given birth to one of her greatest challenges.

Sakura could feel him getting closer, she was on the cliffs above Suna again tracking his movements. She closed her eyes and dropped down from the cliff landing on the steps below. She took her time walking to the gates, he was still a half hour away.

"Sakura." The deep voice of the Kazekage had stopped her in her tracks. 

She had avoided him as much as possible after their...talk.

He had given her the space he thought she had needed, but now, with the Copy nin at his door, he wanted to...apologize to her.

Sakura would never have thought Gaara so transparent years ago, but now, she could see, he was only apologizing to her because he felt the need for diplomacy. She was...disappointed in him. He truly had become a politician.

"I'm sorry, for making you feel uncomfortable, last week, when we were to have dinner together." He started.

Sakura interrupted him,"You were the uncomfortable one Kazekage." She watched his eyes widen in surprise.

"Perhaps, but if I was, it was only because I couldn't help you." He said his hand rose to touch her face but she stepped back from him.

"Help me. What is it, that I need help with Kazekage Sama?" She asked him.

Gaara watched her, her eyes were hard, pained...she was hurting.

"Forgive me, please. Do you really think Sasori is alive?" 

"Yes." She said confidently.

"You believe he has saved you, that these poisonings are for you?" Gaara asked her.

"Yes."

"Why though, and why not reveal himself to you, why go through all this effort?" He was trying.

"That is what I don't know." Her conviction failed her, her feet shuffled restlessly.

"I will help you, you wanted to see his mission reports from his time in Suna. Granted." Gaara stepped toward her. "I want to help you, like you helped me."

"Your issue was a little more straightforward, not easy, but not quite as confusing, whatever this is, whatever Sasori is planning, it's anything but easy or straightforward." Sakura bowed her thanks.

"I never thought you were crazy Sakura, only hurting. Pain, it can make you do and believe...many things, some more real than others. I know." Gaara said softly, his eyes wavering.

"I know." Her voice softened. "It's not the same Gaara."

"A demon is a demon Sakura." Gaara said seriously.

"Sasori is not a demon." Sakura said with more force than she had meant to, her hand clasped over her mouth. "I mean...he was, a person once, once, he was real."

"And now?" Gaara asked her," Is he still real?"

"He is more real to me now than he was four years ago." Sakura jumped down from the stairs and ran to the gate leaving Gaara to contemplate her statement.

Gaara watched her go. 'She...really thinks he's still alive.' They had his puppet body, they had his core, here in Suna, he was dead as far as they were concerned but...what if he wasn't. What if...there was more than one core, more than one puppet body of Sasori's...

Gaara didn't like where his mind was going. He couldn't deny her words, he feared them.


	16. Chapter 16

Two pillars of Konoha stood side by side looking over the vast beauty of the desert before them. He had made it before nightfall and she was pleased to have him there beside her.

His conference with the Kazekage was brief. Few words were needed, few words were desired.

Kakashi bent his head to duck the last rays of the sun as they reached out, the edges touching his toes now, in the mere moments it took for him to right his curved posture.

A giggle, a throaty laugh, "Kakashi." She breathed his name, grateful for his company, for his friendship.

"I have come to see that you are well." He spoke above the sand, above the dying light, under the pretense of concern.

She knew what he was really asking. She took in one then two deep breaths. "He's here. I can feel him."

"Here." Kakashi said, slumping down then over, sitting haphazardly off the side of the cliff they occupied.

"Here." She touched her heart..

Sakura sat beside her friend, her Sensei and sighed.

"You think I'm crazy too don't you." Stated lightly, the weight heavy . 

"Yes, but not in the way you think." He did look at her then, head tilted, thoughts covered by the mask of indifference thicker than that which he wore upon his face.

"Maybe I am mad. I don't...hate him. My fear is real but...fading, like Shisou said it would but not how...it isn't like she thinks either." Her words, her thoughts were fragmented. She wasn't saying what she meant, frustration gripped her.

"Things have changed Kakashi, I have changed." Sakura said.

"So you have, change doesn't make you crazy though." He pointed out, she laughed.

"People make you crazy." She said, her amusement gone , replaced with...resentment.

"They treat me like a child Kakashi, like something to be pitied, they think I see him, they think I...." She shut down.

"I didn't make all those antidotes on my own, how could I?" She turned to him.

"You couldn't. I told them." He said.

They had had this conversation before.

"Do they think you're mad as well? Perhaps I have infected you..." She sighed.

"Tragedy is so much more than an action. I often find myself thinking the real tragedy is not the action, but the reaction." Kakashi said, his eyes roaming the sand, looking for answers to his own demons.

"Reaction." She said the word, trying it on her tongue, she found it palatable, comforting.

"Yes, action, reaction. I was saved by Sasori...action. I claimed he was still alive...reaction. Then another reaction to my action...people think I have lost my mind." She snorted.

"You are one of the most logical people I know, Sakura, you have not lost your mind, you are not crazy, but you do need to find answers." Kakashi smiled at her.

"If you want them." He added.

"Why is he doing this, maybe he is trying to make me crazy." She said.

"Maybe he is trying to tell you something that he can't find words for. Or maybe there are other factors involved such as Gaara of the Desert?" Kakashi looked at her then.

"There is nothing there old man." She gave him a narrowed eye.

"He wants to 'save' me for helping rescue him from Sasori and Deidara. It is obligation." She said. "I thought that maybe he...but...it doesn't matter."

Kakashi watched her think, she was bothered, obviously, she was confused, but not over Sasori. She had changed, but not really, she was still her, her heart was still there.

"Gaara is letting me look at Sasori's old mission reports." She told him.

"Is he..."

"I asked him last week, he told me he would grant me access before you got to the gate." She said.

"Will it help?" He asked.

"Help what...help me find him, I doubt it, but help me understand what made him...break? I think so." She said.

"Know your enemy, always a wise tactic." Kakashi nodded.

"Sasori is not my enemy." Sakura blurted out.

Kakashi raised a silver brow to her.

"He saved me, multiple times, you were there for some of them. Would an enemy do that?" She asked him seriously.

"It depends...you don't know the 'why', you only know the 'is'. There could be any number of reasons, you don't know how he thinks." Kakashi pointed out.

"I do and I don't. I think I could guess, but that's risky, that's why I want to read his mission reports." Sakura said.

"Sakura." Kakashi looked at her and took her hand in his. "What is it you are looking for, really, what do you hope to find?" He was serious.

"I want to know why me. Why follow me, why protect me, why save me not just once or twice but so many times over." She said quietly.

Kakashi continued to hold her hand and thought silently beside her. "Ask him." He finally said. "It's the only way to know why he does what he does."

"And how do I do that Kakashi, I haven't had one coherent word with the man since the battle. He gives me the antidote and leaves, he kills my enemies and surrounds me in blood, then leaves. He sends me gifts of poisoned nin for me to 'learn' from, then nothing, I have no idea where he goes, what he has been doing, what he will do." She said frustrated.

"Don't you think I've thought of that before?" She turned to him taking her hand from his and threw both of her hands in the air in exasperation.

"You forget a simple fact, the common denominator, you Sakura." Kakashi said calmly.

"What do you mean?" She asked him a little put off by his tone. He was teasing her.

"He must watch you, to know where you are to save you, to leave you 'gifts' as you call the unfortunate people he poisons and kills." Kakashi said like she ought to have known it.

"Shit, you're a fucking genius Kakashi." It had never even occurred to her.

"I'm going to leave him a message." A wild grin split her face.

'Oh Shit', Kakashi thought, what have I done...


	17. Chapter 17

Gaara sat across from Sakura in his dining hall. His eyes kept drifting up to her headband.

Kakashi sat next to Sakura watching the Kazekage's eyes, they kept going back to her headband.

Kakashi had rolled his eyes when he saw it, he had expected something, more subtle than carving a scorpion on her headband.

"It has to be something he will notice. He is following me right, I have no idea where he is so I can't leave him a note, or a sign, he has to be able to see it the next time he sees me." She explained why she had carved a scorpion into her headband before they had gone into the dinning hall for dinner that evening.

Kankuro, Gaara's brother, refused to look at her. Temari sat in her seat simply blinking at her.

Dinner had been awkward to say the least.

As Sakura was about to leave the hall after dinner Gaara stopped her with a word.

"Sakura, may I speak with you please?" He called to her.

Kakashi waved to her as he passed her out the door, no one else said anything and Gaara and her were left alone in the large empty hall.

"Sakura." Gaara motioned to the seat next to him.

"I'll stand, if you don't mind." Sakura said.

Gaara sighed as he rose to step toward her, stopping a few feet from where she stood.

"Sakura, what are you doing?" He gestured to her headband.

"It's just a genjutsu." She said.

"I know but why?" He asked her.

"I need to talk to him." She said.

"Come with me Sakura." He held his hand out to her. She hesitated for a moment then placed her hand in his.

They disappeared in a cloud of sand and reappeared in a set of rooms only slightly smaller than Gaara's private quarters. The room was dim, the windows had been shuttered closed and there was a thick layer of dust and sand on the floor, furniture ...everything.

"Where are we?" Sakura spoke quietly, fearing her voice would disturb the dust.

"This is Sasori's home, no one comes here anymore. No one will buy the house, no one wants it." He told her walking around the small home.

Sakura sucked in a quick breath of surprise and slowly began to move about the room carefully. She moved to a picture on the wall and looked at Gaara who nodded his consent. Her hand lifted to the glass and wiped away the years of grime and dust. A young Sasori looked out from behind the glass, his face split is the most adorable and the sweetest smile.

"Aren't you a little cutie." Sakura smiled at the little boy in the picture.

Gaara watched her move to another picture and wipe away the grime.

A Sasori of just a few years older looked out of the frame at her, his smile was gone, his eyes were heated and he was wearing a Sand nin uniform. Sakura's mouth snapped shut, his eyes, they were so expressive, so alive, albeit heated with what looked like...anger...but so different than the cold, expressionless eyes she remembered.

"Such change, how Sasori Kun." Sakura whispered.

'Kun'...Gaara's eyes narrowed as he watched Sakura move further down the hall. He followed her.

Sakura came to a doorway of a small room. There was a single bed up against the wall, a desk in the corner, a few bookshelves against the side wall and an open closet. A dirty teddy bear sat on the bed with a little wooden puppet. Sakura moved to the bed and looked at the bear, looked at the nightstand and stopped. Her hand reached out and wiped the dust from the frame there and she saw Sasori again, the youngest picture of him yet in between two people, his parents, she thought.

The parents that had been killed by Kakashi's father.

She set the photo back on the nightstand and stood in the middle of the room. She closed her eyes, two tears slipped from the corners and fell down the sides of her cheeks.

Sakura opened her eyes when she heard Gaara moving around in the closet. Dust rose like a cloud and they both began to cough and sneeze. When he came out of the closet he was holding a sash, a red sash with the name Sasori embroidered on one end and Akasuna embroidered on the other.

He handed it to her, "Here, wear this, instead of the genjutsu. He will recognize it."

Sakura took the sash with two hands and bowed her thanks to Gaara. She tied the sash around her waist and looked up to see Gaara frowning at her.

"I won't even pretend to understand why you think you need to do this but I won't stop you either." He told her.

"You know what I'm doing." She said.

He nodded. "There are worse ways to tell someone you wish to speak to them, at least you're not going around poisoning people to send him a message like he does with you." Gaara hadn't meant it as a joke and more than Kakashi had but hearing it from the calm red head made mirth bubble from her lips...perhaps she was becoming unhinged.

She stifled her laughter. Their eyes met. "Thank you Gaara."

Gaara nodded, "Will you have dinner with me now, tomorrow night?"

Sakura laughed again, but more quietly, "Yes."


End file.
